Yeah, personally I would never use imy list in that way at all. That’s selling to me and that’s the first thing that turns people off. Anything with “I’ve got an opportunity for you“ is nothing I'd touch at all.

Interesting. I've used that approach frequently in radio and it has generated quite a few sponsorships. I don't spam the "opportunity," I offer real, targeted opportunities to those with whom we already have a relationship but with whom we might not have worked for a while. (We are typically booked with guests months in advance.)

I'm curious why venues for magic would not be open to that kind of approach.

Oh I would NEVER do something that transparent and insulting of someones intelligence. Don't treat your customers like marks. What venues in magic would this benefit? Almost none.

First of all do you REALLY think they believe you? Couple other things though.

Next is that sure when you are selling something like radio spots that have a certain rotation or whatever and you have to get them gone then yea. When you are selling a product or whatever like that sure.

In entertainment when you are selling "you" then it is different. You want that relationship where THEY CALL YOU when they have the need, not when you have to beg them to fill your spare time. The difference is COLOSSAL! Literally everything about the relationship changes in a way that is not good for the performer. Also they see the tactic. It is painfully transparent. You absolutely come across as desperate. Not the best look for a performer who wants to look busy and in demand is it?

Worse yet done wrong, and it almost always is, you become a joke. There was a car dealership in Melrose Park Illinois. Let's just say I would have bought a car from them without checking for a body in the trunk. Every way too often he ran the commercial "I bought too many cars this month so I'm discounting them" sales event. So now your either the biggest moron on the planet and don't know your business and I shouldn't buy from you OR your just a sleazy car sales person and I don't want to do business with you. Not a great look.

When you get caught using a sales tactic you are sunk. That is why SO many of the magic marketing guru crap leaves me SO cold. Sell YOU and sell on relationships. Don't trick them into anything. Nobody is happy when you do.

Yeah, but it's pretty easy when you have no interest in chess courses to start with. He can ask as many times as he wants my interest can't get lower.

That might work sometimes with web marketing. Keep asking random folks enough times and you'll get buyers. If I did that I'd lose more than I'd gain.

As I have said a million times here and more examples like this just keep coming up...Selling entertainment is unlike all other conventional types of sales. For the record I too owned a radio station. I started as an on-air personality, became promotions director, PD, Sales Manager and then eventually GM. When I Promotions Director I strongly disagreed with our Sales Manager who would sell spots/schedules as you mentioned. I hated it. Most advertisers hated it. I begged him to sell it the way I did at my companies. He refused saying this was the way the industry did it and the way all the radio sales gurus trained. So when I became Sales Manager the first thing I did was fire him, then stopped new sales using such standard radio sales tactics. I explained and taught my techniques as I believed selling radio as entertainment should be which was more lucrative than selling traditional radio.

I switched our on-air programming to be entertainment and feature based, even did so with sports, weather and traffic. Our remote patrol was changed too as our remote season also adapted to this new format.

The result was a 400% increase in sales and revenue in the first year, up to 600% increase by the end of the second year. Again, when done properly it is not about sales or selling. It flips the switch with potential advertisers actually coming to us rather than account executives having to hit the pavement and call on old, non-active accounts trying to bring them back to life (they left for a reason.) The advertisers couldn't get what we were eoffering anywhere else - period.

You must break down the entire process of presenting and sales which strongly includes education and positioning. I have never seen a radio station do this in any way. The psychological ways people view, see, and think of radio sales is not being done. Instead they all just plow into a business with typical radio sales tactics and the same results as always.

Simply put, every performer should take the time to learn real entertainment business operations and sales. I've been told what I know and teach is like getting an MBA in entertainment business. Everything else is just operating on the surface with the same old up and down typical results.

That is also why when a performer tells me that all they need is some good marketing I immediately tell them poppycock! That may be what they THINK they need, then I show them what they actually need and why what they think they needed would be a waste of time, effort and money. When you offer results, people listen regardless of what they think or have been told.

Mindpro, I see that I misread your previous post. You didn't say that it wasn't effective; you said that you personally would not use your list that way, and I jumped to a conclusion.

And Danny, you jumped to several paragraphs of conclusions based on my short post. If I was unclear about what I was trying to convey, all you had to do was ask.

Thanks for the clarification smithart.

We schedule our guests at least six months in advance, and it is rare that we have an unexpected opening in our schedule. When we do, it is a real opportunity, and a real value to our partners. In those cases we reach out to our existing partners and let them know. It doesn't cost them anything to appear on the program, but often they choose to sponsor (or extend their sponsorship of) the show, and sponsorships are how we pay for our airtime.

Of course a lot of how successful we can be is dependent on our host. We've had a couple of sought-out guests who told us that they no longer do call-in radio, but their one exception is our show, because of the respect they have for our host. (I can't take any credit for that, but it's an important part of the overall picture.)

(This is, of course, a bit of an over-simplification.)

Yea the "value to our partners" pitch LOL. You are comparing apples and hand grenades. Having to fill a slot in a schedule do to an emergency and them using it as a sales opportunity to get further sponsorships is 180 degrees different from selling entertainment. In your case you are trying to get them to fix your problem, and hopefully profit from it by hitting them up for further sponsorships. (You can try to spin it and hang any air freshener on it you like but indeed this is what is being described by you.) In the other case you are trying to sell a service.

Also if it was me, I would NOT try to hit them up for anything extra while they are solving my problem. No chance. I am NOT saying you do anything wrong by doing so. Not even close. It is not even a gray area. It is absolutely fine. I just don't like the feel of it. If it was me being sold to it would seem like I can't come in and do a favor without someone putting the arm on me for more money. They are already doing you a favor by filling a last minute spot. Sometimes it is just best to let those relationships sit without always selling them on something more. Much like magicians who don't know how to stop doing tricks, often salesmen don't know when to stop selling.

And it would heavily strain credulity to believe they came in or called in and then just decided on their own to spend even more money after the appearance. At some point they are being pitched. I have always thought the best way to sell to anyone is to not let them know they are being sold anything.

I am looking to buy a new Mustang. I looked at a couple places and online and such. A couple dealerships ended up with my phone number. One guy is texting me pictures, wanting to know when we can schedule test drives and even mentioning how they are moving fast while they are there. The other guy just said "hey we have a few on the lot when you get the time lets look at them". I am going to see the second guy.

I get it is a fine line and when your income stream depends on it then it really is an amplified feeling of having to always be selling. It is just that is the EXACT look I avoid at all costs.

PLEASE read the part again where I am NOT saying you are doing anything wrong by doing this. Is is just a different way of working is all. Please take no offense.

I am not at all offended, partly because I'm not sure how what you said would apply to me, but mostly because I'm not afraid of criticism and I respect your opinions.

I remember reading some advice from Steve Martin, "Be so good that they can't ignore you." It's great advice, but I find it hard to believe that both of you just sit around and wait for the bookings to come in based on your reputation.

Let's be honest; even with family and friends, I can often go months without talking to them because I get distracted and I need some sort of reminder. I'm very fortunate to have a thoughtful wife who makes sure we stay in touch with everyone.

Mindpro you said:


I've tried to make it clear in several of my posts that it is useless to try to "sell" anything if you don't know what product you are selling. If I haven't said more, especially on this thread, it's because I felt like you and Danny have done an excellent job of making those points.

You then go on to say:


I respect your experience, and I can guarantee you are a much better marketer and promoter than I will ever be. I'm not sure if your comments were aimed directly at me, or whether they were generalizations. But please don't jump to conclusions.

Danny, when you said:


In this case, you were addressing what I said directly. And you were right that what I posted was not a direct comparison, and it wasn't intended to be. My point was that the focus should be on solving problems for the clients (or potential clients) and used a specific example from my own work. It wasn't about selling entertainment specifically.

But you were completely wrong about using an emergency as a sales opportunity. On the other hand, if we don't let them know there is a need, then how can they even make a decision?

Again, I am confident that you do a much better job of selling yourself as a performer than I can or do. I'm not as convinced that it makes my perspective useless or even less useful. (And I'm not claiming that you ever said that, but if that's how you feel, let me know.)

What I'm having trouble nailing down is that if the two of you are not selling by educating people about your "product" and giving them an opportunity to "purchase" it, what are you doing?

Unless I've misinterpreted, you've both said that you would not do it the way that I do, so how do you approach "sales"? Although I think you've both been premature in assuming what I do, I still think this could be very educational not only for me, but for Fedora and any others following this topic.

Jay Marshal told me a billion years ago that “you book work from work”. He was right.

First thing to understand is I do not do one night gigs. People pay to come to see me in public places. That is my only work. So I don’t have to sell in the sense that I’m selling the show to someone in their house or for a party or what not. So my needs are much different.

So when I do these things and have done them for decades people know how to book me for their theater or whatever. Or I have worked with them for so many years they use me regularly. I book work from work.

Read an interesting book a few years ago: Start With Why. It's about how companies like Apple and Nike became successful by telling their customers why they do what they do. I did a post on it in my column here in the Cafe.